


(nothing, nothing, nothing)

by eeveepkmnfan



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, I barely even know about Dragon Age, I have no idea what I'm doing, Let's see where this goes?, Platonic Relationships, Solas is fascinating okay, Writing Exercise, legit the only reason I'm writing this haha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 06:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18686458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eeveepkmnfan/pseuds/eeveepkmnfan
Summary: How could Solas have expected this - him? Lavellan, young and yet not Dalish at all. A boy who smiles as he speaks of fear and hatred, and does what is good not because it is right but because it is what he wants. The boy who stares at him as if he is an ancient ruin with so much to explore, who questions and questions and indeed, is Questions.Honest and selfish and he who walks ahead. Mahanon.





	(nothing, nothing, nothing)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song NFWMB by Hozier! I'm very new to Dragon Age and its universe, but this is just for fun, haha! There are probably a lot of glaring inconsistencies, and once I write more of this I'll try my best to correct that, but for now, I hope you can enjoy it as it is - a glorious, hearty mess. <3

“Quickly! Before more come through!” There is a shout, and then, he is in front of the green, green, _green_ of something great and terrible. The Seeker had said he was to blame for this. If he was, he had to wonder why. (That thought was scary. It was even more frightening to think of what someone _else_ would do now that the instrument of their power was awake.)

A firm, tight grip, and a sensation for all the world like he was falling. Falling and falling into something much larger than he was, an almost bottomless drop into nothingness. The feeling raised the hair on his arms and caused him to take an almost immediate step back from the man who’d held him. 

A storm met his eyes, and he stared, unable to look away. “Who are you?” The man opened his mouth, but before he could give an answer, another man spoke.

A dwarf named Varric introduced himself, and he could see how plainly Cassandra disapproved. It made him smile, and he said, “I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Varric.”

It was the storm front in elven form that cut in, his smile and eyes amused. “You’ll soon come to a different conclusion, I’m afraid.” 

He looked at the mark on his hand and then back, back to staring. “Why?”

The older elf quirked an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

He smiled back, glad. “Why would you be afraid of that?” Storm met his eyes in apparent befuddlement, but he could see something else as well. He truly lived up to his name.

Varric cut in, highly entertained. “I can already tell you’re going to be something else, Questions.”

Ah! Was that his name? How lovely! He couldn’t help but smile, even as Cassandra cut in, looking very displeased. And so it is that they were off again, this time two stronger. As they made their way to the biggest stretch of green in the sky (a canvas all wrong; haphazard and ruined) his fellow elf spoke again, his voice quiet and unreadable.

“May I ask your name?”

He turned back to look, and almost stopped. Almost. “Aren’t I Questions?” The dwarf laughed, and the man he couldn’t help but stare at, well. The corners of his mouth turned up and his eyes crinkled, and suddenly he was someone else. It was a familiar hug that nostalgia gave him upon the sight.

“Forgive me, _da’len_. May I have the name you call yourself?” Little one. Little one. Little one. It was a sudden and surefire burst of sunlight, that word. That feeling. He was happy.

So he laughed, bright and sure, his eyes shining. Even Cassandra had looked back to him at that point, all of them unused to such an innocent and unashamed noise. 

“I’m Mahanon. And you’re Storms and Lightning! Thank you.” He grinned and grinned, and as Storm slowly smiled back, he already knew that this would pass too. He would be okay. Eventually. (It was more comforting than it sounded, maybe.)

“I am Solas. Dare I ask why?” 

Mahanon tilted his head slightly and blinked at him. “Because I’m happy.”

“Ah. In that case, you are welcome, _da’len_.” And Solas smiled back, surprised and maybe a little happy too. Good.

They pressed on, running into more demons along the way. Mahanon had never gotten such a good luck at one before, and he was equally fascinated and sad. But he was a hunter, and he knew his duties. He drew his bow, lined up a shot, and let his arrows fly. He could feel the loose-floating-go of stormy barriers against his skin, and as one demon managed to sneak behind him, before he even heard Varric shout he had already shoved a dagger through its eye, warm thick blood spraying over his face as it screeched in pain and rage.

He twisted the knife expertly. It died quickly, and he said his prayers with his eyes open and his hands clenched around Freedom and Surprise. It would have to be enough for now. 

As the short battle wore down, he turned around to check on his companions only to find their eyes already on him. He cocked his head silently, wondering. 

Varric grinned at him, lowering Bianca (lovely name for a lovely woman). “You just get more interesting, Questions. Now where’d a city elf like yourself learn all that? And what was that you were muttering to yourself?”

Cassandra glared at them. “We do not have time for this, we must-!“ Her accent was pretty, and he would have loved to hear more of it, but sadly, Solas interrupted.

“Let us make haste; there is no time to waste. However, I am sure Master Tethras would be amenable to talking as we go, no?” He was already sure of his answer, as by the time Varric lit up and the Seeker made one of those noises of hers, they had already continued on. 

They were efficient, this group. Mahanon could appreciate it.

“So, let’s hear it then. What does my fellow prisoner have to say for himself?” The dwarf was looking at him expectantly and he thought that Solas was looking curious as well, so he nodded to himself. Cassandra was free to take his answer as well, of course.

“I’m not from an alienage. I’m a hunter from clan Lavellan.” Varric was obviously surprised, but it was Solas who did a double take at his face. He was far from offended; he’d expected this, really. 

“And yet, no vallaslin?”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t handle the pain, and so the Keeper decided I wasn’t ready yet.” 

Storms and Lightning turned a raised eyebrow in his direction. He raised one back, playfully. There was a thread of amusement and strain both in Solas’ voice then. “You seem pleased.”

Mahanon faced forward, looking past the Seeker’s strong back and out towards somewhere else. Quietly, he said, “I didn’t want them, no.” Thankfully, the topic was changed by Cassandra of all people, still facing forward even as she asked him why he had come to the Conclave in the first place.

Chewing the inside of his cheek, he told the truth. He liked to, whenever possible and even, sometimes, when it shouldn’t be. 

“My Keeper tasked me with spying. The rest of the clan was glad to be rid of me.” Let them make of that what they will. Solas already had.

“Ah, yes. The familiar tale of the Dalish shunning what is different.” His voice was light but heavy all at once, and Mahanon realized that he knew that voice. He’d had it, once, but that was sometime else.

“They were afraid,” he offered, not sure why. They disliked him and wanted him gone, but… they had given him shelter for all those years, even if no longer. He’d grown up amongst that culture, that place, those people, and no matter if another him would have hated them – he didn’t. Their fear, he found, he empathized with. 

Solas’ voice grew hard. “Do not make excuses for them. The Dalish are afraid, indeed! They are nothing more than children clinging to what they can never understand.”

Varric whistled while Mahanon tilted his head at the other man. Their eyes met and Stormclouds practically dared him to argue, looked ready for it. But he would be surprised, and he was.

“Yes. How can we be anything else?” Solas was indeed very surprised. He narrowed his eyes and looked at him expectantly, and Mahanon blew out a breath, eyes on his feet as they trekked over uneven ground.

“No one understands everything. Most understand very little, and that is true for my clan as well. I will likely never be certain whether the Dalish myths are true; I certainly don’t follow the gods. We have so very little to know, after all… I have always wondered if maybe the stories are wrong. We have no books, no records, only oral history. Who’s to say that the legends haven’t twisted and turned over the years?”

Having been listening closely, Solas furrowed his brows. “You talk as if you consider yourself part of them.”

Mahanon smiled softly. “I do.”

“And yet they do not care for you. Have exiled you, in fact.” Solas stared at him as if issuing a challenge, and he wanted to take it on. He would.

Varric cut in and tried to interrupt, looking at Stormfront with slight concern for the mark-bearer, and yet Mahanon was fine. There was no one to get between.

Mahanon was still smiling as he said, “I have no clan to go back to. But if they asked, I would. In the time it takes to kill a rabbit.”

It was Cassandra’s voice that filled the air next, curious and disapproving and (admirable) dutiful as always. “Why?”

Solas and Varric looked at him, each wearing very different expressions, and yet, he knew them both in that moment. Knew them as he knew tracking and sewing and navigation by the stars. As they were and what they would be.

He could only hope to offer the same as he responded, wistful for something he never had and yet so known to him, “Because that is where home is.”

They traveled in silence the rest of the way to the Breach, and he could only pray: to the stars, the moon, the sun, even to the mark that made its home in him – please, let me help. Selfish and honest and he who moves ahead.

Mahanon.


End file.
